Synopsis:
In this episode, Curtis examines the rise of game theory used during
the Cold War and the way in which its mathematical models of human
behavior filtered into economic thought.
The program traces the development of game theory with particular
reference to the work of John Nash (famous from "Beautiful Mind"), who
believed that all humans were inherently suspicious and selfish
creatures that strategized constantly. Using this as his first premise,
Nash constructed logically consistent and mathematically verifiable
models, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Economics. He invented
system games reflecting his beliefs about human behavior, including one
called "So Long Sucker---F*ck Your Buddy", in which the only way to win
was to betray your playing partner, and it is from this game that the
episode's title is taken. These games were internally coherent and
worked correctly as long as the players obeyed the ground rules that
they should behave selfishly and try to outwit their opponents, but when
RAND's analysts tried the games on their own secretaries, they instead
chose not to betray each other, but to cooperate every time. This did
not, in the eyes of the analysts, discredit the models, but instead
proved that the secretaries were unfit subjects.
What was not known at the time was that Nash was suffering from
paranoid schizophrenia, and, as a result, was deeply suspicious of
everyone around him—including his colleagues—and was convinced that
many were involved in conspiracies against him. It was this mistaken
belief that led to his view of people as a whole that formed the basis
for his theories. Footage of an older and wiser Nash was shown in which
he acknowledges that his paranoid views of other people at the time were
false.
Curtis examines how game theory was used to create the USA's nuclear
strategy during the Cold War. Because no nuclear war occurred, it was
believed that game theory had been correct in dictating the creation and
maintenance of a massive American nuclear arsenal—because the Soviet
Union had not attacked America with its nuclear weapons, the supposed
deterrent must have worked and the theories would later be propagated
through other segments of society.
